Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 28, 2023 at 11:35am

The intestinal microbiome is a potential source of biomarkers. The researchers "previously reported that antibody responses to gut commensal bacteria were associated with type 1 diabetes diagnosis, suggesting that certain antimicrobial immune responses may help predict disease onset."

Quin Yuhui Xie et al, Immune responses to gut bacteria associated with time to diagnosis and clinical response to T cell–directed therapy for type 1 diabetes prevention, Science Translational Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adh0353

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 28, 2023 at 11:34am

Once known as juvenile diabetes because the disorder most frequently begins in childhood, the condition is linked to a constellation of potential causes. The disorder is tied to a turncoat immune system, which destroys insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Destruction of beta cells leads to lifelong insulin dependence.

Doctors say there are two other possible causes of type 1 diabetes: a genetic predisposition to the disease, and exposure to certain viruses. Either way—faulty DNA or viral exposure—the end result is a T cell attack on beta cells in the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes is categorized as an autoimmune disease, but is more precisely defined as an autoinflammatory condition.

"Immune-targeted therapies have efficacy for treatment of autoinflammatory diseases. 

For example, treatment with the T cell–specific anti-CD3 antibody teplizumab delayed disease onset in participants at high risk for type 1 diabetes in the TrialNet 10 trial.

"However, heterogeneity in therapeutic responses in TrialNet-10 and other immunotherapy trials identifies gaps in understanding disease progression and treatment responses.

The FDA approved tepluzimab in November of 2022 amid findings that revealed not all patients in the TN-10 study experienced the same benefits. The reason for that discrepancy.

may be explained by specific commensal bacteria. Commensal bacteria are so-called "friendly bacteria." They make up the microbiota, a diverse community numbering in the trillions inhabiting mucosal and epidermal surfaces in humans. These bacteria play critical roles in defense against pathogens and apparently in response to the drug teplizumab.

Researchers  investigated anti-commensal antibody responses against a panel of taxonomically diverse intestinal bacteria species in sera from TN-10 participants before and after teplizumab or placebo treatment. They theorized that differences in patients' responses might be explained by anti-commensal antibodies directed against commensal microbes in the gut microbiome. The team then analyzed antibody profiles in 228 serum samples from 63 participants in the TN-10 trial before and after teplizumab treatment.

Patients who had longer-lived antibody responses to three species of gut bacteria—Bifidobacterium longum, Enterococcus faecalis, and Dialister invisus—had more time on teplizumab treatment before being diagnosed as having type 1 diabetes. Clinical trial data revealed that patients with stronger immune responses against the three gut microbes tended to gain the most benefit from the drug's disease-delaying effects.

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 28, 2023 at 11:23am

Gut microbes may determine patients' response to a drug that delays onset of type 1 diabetes

The microbiome offers a motherlode of data about health and disease, and new findings suggest that antibodies to gut microbes can determine how well patients respond to a new monoclonal antibody drug that delays the onset of type 1 diabetes.

Increasingly, scientists are finding that the gut microbiome has unexpected relationships with health and disease. Research into the gut-brain axis, for example, has unveiled a surprising relationship between gut microbes and mental health. But medical investigators say the list is longer and the link to gut microbes equally complex.

Now, clinical trial data have allowed researchers to track how the gut microbiome can influence patients' response to tepluzimab, a medication that delays type 1 diabetes. The monoclonal antibody therapy targets T cells and prevents them from destroying insulin-producing beta cells. The antibody is the first treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration to postpone the metabolic disorder in high-risk individuals.

The FDA approved the drug based on results from a randomized clinical trial known as TrialNet-10 study, or the TN-10 study for short. Medical investigators from the University of Toronto revisited the TN-10 trial, studying more than 200 blood samples from 63 participants before and after teplizumab treatment. Findings from the Toronto analysis, reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, casts a new spotlight on the immune system's relationship with the microbiome, revealing how gut microbes can shape the progression of type 1 diabetes. With this new knowledge in hand, clinicians may better pinpoint patients who are most likely to respond to teplizumab.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 27, 2023 at 10:12am

Could One Physics Theory Unlock the Mysteries of the Brain?

The ability of the phenomenon of criticality to explain the sudden emergence of new properties in complex systems has fascinated scientists in recent decades. When systems are balanced at their “critical point,” small changes in individual units can trigger outsized events, just as falling pebbles can start an avalanche. That abrupt shift in behavior describes the phase changes of water from ice to liquid to gas, but it’s also relevant to many other situations, from flocks of starlings on the wing to stock market crashes. In the 1990s, the physicist Per Bak and other scientists suggested that the brain might be operating near its own critical point. Ever since then, neuroscientists have been searching for evidence of fractal patterns and power laws at work in the brain’s networks of neurons. What was once a fringe theory has begun to attract more mainstream attention, with researchers now hunting for mechanisms capable of tuning brains toward criticality.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 26, 2023 at 11:42am

Hormone secreted by fetus causes morning sickness: study

A hormone produced by the human fetus is to blame for morning sickness in pregnant women, a study has found, paving the way to possible prevention and treatment.

Nausea and vomiting affect approximately 70 percent of pregnant women, according to the study published in Nature recently  by researchers.

 In its worst form, hyperemesis gravidarum, the nausea and vomiting is so severe that women are unable to eat or drink normally. The culprit is a hormone produced by the fetus—a protein known as GDF15. But how sick the mother feels depends on a combination of how much of the hormone is produced by the fetus and how much exposure the mother had to this hormone before becoming pregnant.

The discovery points to a potential way to prevent pregnancy sickness by exposing mothers to GDF15 ahead of pregnancy to build up their resilience. It makes us more confident that preventing GDF15 from accessing its highly specific receptor in the mother's brain will ultimately form the basis for an effective and safe way of treating this disorder.

Stephen O'Rahilly, Gdf15 linked to maternal risk of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06921-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06921-9

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 26, 2023 at 11:23am

Mineral wool is often used as cultivation substrate in hydroponics. Not only is this non-biodegradable, it is also produced with a very energy-intensive process. The electronic cultivation substrate eSoil is made of cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer, mixed with a conductive polymer called PEDOT. This combination as such is not new, but this is the first time it has been used for plant cultivation and for creating an interface for plants in this manner.

Previous research has used high voltage to stimulate the roots. The advantage of the new work is that it has very low energy consumption and no high voltage danger. The new study will open the pathway for new research areas to develop further hydroponic cultivation, the researchers say.

They also say, "We can't say that hydroponics will solve the problem of food security. But it can definitely help particularly in areas with little arable land and with harsh environmental conditions".

 A low-power bioelectronic growth scaffold that enhances crop seedling growth, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304135120. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2304135120

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 26, 2023 at 11:21am

Researchers develop 'electronic soil' that enhances crop growth

Barley seedlings grow on average 50% more when their root system is stimulated electrically through a new cultivation substrate. In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers  have developed an electrically conductive "soil" for soilless cultivation, known as hydroponics.

The world population is increasing, and we also have climate change. So it's clear that we won't be able to cover the food demands of the planet with only the already existing agricultural methods. But with hydroponics we can grow food also in urban environments in very controlled settings.

Researchers  now developed an electrically conductive cultivation substrate, tailored to hydroponic cultivation, that they call eSoil. The researchers have shown that barley seedlings grown in the conductive "soil" grew up to 50% more in 15 days when their roots were stimulated electrically.

Hydroponic cultivation means that plants grow without soil, needing only water, nutrients and something their roots can attach to—a substrate. It is a closed system that enables water recirculation so that each seedling gets exactly the nutrients it needs. Therefore, very little water is required and all nutrients remain in the system, which is not possible in traditional cultivation.

Hydroponics also enables vertical cultivation in large towers to maximize space efficiency. Crops already being cultivated in this manner include lettuce, herbs and some vegetables. Grains are not typically grown in hydroponics apart for their use as fodder. In this study the researchers show that barley seedlings can be cultivated using hydroponics and that they have a better growth rate thanks to electrical stimulation. They have have found  that seedlings process nitrogen more effectively, but it's not clear yet how the electrical simulation impacts this process.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 25, 2023 at 11:17am

Based on the helioseismology studies we've done, there is almost certainly NOT a black hole in our sun. Or if there is, it would need to be exceedingly tiny. So there's no need to pack your bug-out bag for a solar doomsday. But perhaps there are some Hawking stars out there if we only care to look.

More information: Matthew E. Caplan et al, Is there a black hole in the center of the Sun?, arXiv (2023). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2312.07647

Part 2

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Could there be a black hole inside the sun?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 25, 2023 at 11:16am

It's a classic tale of apocalyptic fiction. The sun, our precious source of heat and light, collapses into a black hole. Or perhaps a stray black hole comes along and swallows it up. The End is Nigh! If a stellar-mass black hole swallowed our sun, then we'd only have about eight minutes before, as the kids say, it gets real. But suppose the sun swallowed a small primordial black hole? Then things get interesting, and that's definitely worth a paper on the arXiv preprint server.

Primordial black holes are hypothetical black holes that formed during the earliest moments of the universe. Unlike stellar-mass black holes or supermassive black holes, primordial black holes would typically be tiny, with a mass roughly that of an asteroid and a size smaller than a baseball. They show up in certain theoretical models and have been used to try to explain everything from dark matter to a distant Planet X. Many of these models argue that primordial black holes are common, so it's inevitable that a star would eventually capture one. Such stars with a black hole center are known as Hawking stars.
As this new work points out, a captured primordial black hole would initially have almost no effect on a sun-like star. Compared to the mass of the sun, an asteroid's worth of mass might as well be a speck of dust. Even if it were a black hole it couldn't consume much of the sun quickly. But it would affect things over time. A black hole in a star would consume matter in the stellar core and grow over time. If it could grow quickly on a cosmological scale, then it could consume a star completely. If not, it could still affect the evolution and end life of the star.
The study shows that it largely comes down to the initial size of the primordial black hole. For ones at the largest mass range not excluded by observations, around a billionth of a solar mass, it could essentially consume a star in less than half a billion years. If this has happened, then there should be solar mass black holes out there, which are too small to have formed from supernovae like traditional stellar-mass black holes.
If the primordial black hole is much smaller, say less than a trillionth of a solar mass, then things get more complicated. The tiny black hole would consume some matter within the star, but not at a fast pace. It would, however, stir things up in the core, heating it up more than fusion alone. As a result, a star could swell into a "red straggler" which would be cooler and redder than usual red giant stars. All that turbulence in the core could also affect the surface activity of the star. The effects would be subtle, but the authors suggest that the presence of a primordial black hole could be seen through stellar seismology.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on December 23, 2023 at 12:19pm

Cancer-fighting cells made inside body

Viruses that infect immune cells could turn them into cancer-targeting agents — without having to remove the cells from the person receiving treatment, genetically edit them and then reintroduce them to their body. Genetically engineered chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells have yielded dramatic recoveries from some blood cancers — but are notoriously expensive and technically difficult, placing them out of reach for many people. In tests with monkeys, an injection of a virus that inserts genes into the animal’s immune cells mimicked the action of approved CAR-T therapies.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03969-5?utm_source=Live+...

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